


walks like she don’t care/you wanna take her everywhere

by karples



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: (as in the game), Action, F/F, Fluff, Kissing, Tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 11:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10019588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karples/pseuds/karples
Summary: There are probably better ways of saying that Batgirl and Spoiler are the best.





	

**Author's Note:**

> alternative summary: everything’s a competition.
> 
> punched out over a series of breaks at work. some action & fluff to tide you over in hard times, i guess. i need to read more of steph but the need to write playful, fun cass won out. how to tag this fic??
> 
> title from “maria” by blondie. the song that steph sings toward the end is from “one way or another,” also by blondie.

**

 

God, but the way Cass moved. Tim called it precise and Bruce called it efficient and Babs called it practiced and Dick called it dancing and Steph called it -- Steph called it spidery. She didn’t mean it in the  _yikes, there’s a spider on my shoulder, get it off!_  kind of way -- she meant it in the best way possible -- like watching a very small creature spinning silk in still air and sunlight. Eight fragile legs as thin as an eyelash, and it would be slow, peaceful. Not creepy at all. Scary to people who didn’t understand Cass, and Steph felt that unfairness like a pin in the heart, but Steph understood Cass, Steph  _knew_  Cass.

Well, mostly. Sometimes Steph swore that Cass was showing off, preening, revelling in her range of motion, but no one else ever mentioned it, so Steph figured it was a Batgirl-and-Spoiler thing. Steph could keep a secret. And, frankly, a part of Steph just didn’t want to share. 

 

**

 

Tiptoeing out of the dark, Cass tapped Steph’s elbow.

Steph nearly jumped out of her suit and skin. “Wow, give a girl some warning, will ya!”

Gleefully, Cass signed,  _But that would ‘spoil’ the surprise_.

Steph laughed and signed back. _Okay, you’re lucky I love you._

 _And you’re lucky I’m warning you. You’re it_. The fabric of Cass’s memory-weave mask crinkled around her grin, and when Steph swiped at her, Cass slipped away, the barest whisper of a breeze against Steph’s fingertips. Oooh, that was totally intentional, the taunt, the proximity, the tease.

“I’m gonna make you regret that,” Steph growled as she signed, swiveling to follow Cass, whose hands fluttered like birds midflight:

_Have to catch me first._

“Uh, excuse you, is that a challenge?”

Before Steph could continue, Cass leaped onto the ledge and flung her arms wide, as if inviting Steph into her embrace. Batgirl really was spending too much time with Nightwing. Sensing an opportunity, Steph lunged -- Cass’s fall seemed to happen in steady increments, like the ticking hand of a clock -- and still Steph missed her by a hair’s breadth.

As always, the sheer vertical drop was breathtaking. Steph’s eyes struggled to adjust to the magnitude of that distance, the reflected light on Gotham’s dizzying black geometry. Far ahead, Cass’s costume gleamed in the night.

“Exeunt,” Steph said to herself, readying her jump line. The gritty pungent wind from the harbor slapped her cheeks so raw, she almost couldn’t feel her own fierce smile. “Pursuing Batgirl.”

 

**

 

Cass dipped behind the rolling spotlights of the Natural History Museum. Chasing the smoky fringes of Cass’s cape, Steph tripped over the rung of a roof access ladder and instinctively executed a perfect handspring.

“Ha- _ha_!” Steph exclaimed, arms extended before her. Take that, gravity. Now she was nose-to-nose with a rusty electrician’s box. Face tingling with heat, Steph backtracked. The humidity and mugginess seemed to stifle all sound, except for the undercurrent of Saturday evening traffic, the coalescent hum of human voices, tin cans buffeted down the street... and the suspicious whistle of air through an open skylight.

Upon closer inspection, Steph saw that the alarms on the skylight had been deactivated. One hundred percent Cass’s work.

Shimmying over the edge, Steph dropped like a penny into a dark reservoir. The difference in temperature and air quality was startling. Overhead, the tar-stained ribs of a woolly mammoth skeleton intersected with panels of moonlight, casting intricate shadows.

Steph started to shout and hesitated. The prehistoric exhibit always gave her goosebumps -- all of those majestic specimens with their ancient inconsolable silences. Maybe Cass liked it here? And the idea of Cass finding kinship with so many dead things filled Steph with a weird grief.

Well, indoors voices had never been Steph’s strong suit anyway. She cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered: “One way or another, I’m gonna find ya, I’m gonna getcha, getcha, getcha...”

Cass’s arms slid around Steph’s waist, and Steph didn’t flinch, though it was a close thing. Fake it ‘til you make it, rah rah rah.

Hooking her chin over Steph’s shoulder, Cass signed something that Steph didn’t understand. In Steph’s defense, looking  _down_  at handsigns was kind of confusing.

“Come again?”

Cass resorted to standard Bat code.  _Got. You_.

Steph clapped her hands over Cass’s, and Cass twitched against her back. “Nope,” Steph said. “Got  _you_. Now you’re it.”

Cass poked her. _And now you’re it_.

“It _so_ does not work like that,” Steph protested, twisting about to drag away Cass’s Batgirl mask. The fabric caught on Cass’s nose, then slid loose. “Whoops, sorry.”

In response, Cass made an interesting new expression. Steph laughed and cupped Cass’s jaw, nosing her cheek, every worry line, every tiny pockmark and dimple and scar.

There was that pin in Steph’s heart again, this time for an entirely different reason. Smiling a sweet sliver of a smile, Cass tugged back Steph’s cowl so Steph could trace Cass’s lips and teeth with her tongue. It was probably bad etiquette, but Steph squinted to check if Cass had closed her eyes. She had, much to Steph’s relief, and the taper of her eyelids looked sleek and soft, her expression almost dream-like, washed smooth like a stone.

Somehow Cass’s fingers had curled in Steph’s hair, resting at the base of Steph’s skull, gentle and very, very ticklish. Steph squirmed and giggled like she was -- like she was her age, years ‘n years younger than she felt.

“Okay, but for real though, you’re it,” Steph said. “You can’t duck outta this one.”

_But you ducked out of catching me._

Steph’s grip tightened on Cass’s elbows. “Then what’s this? Hmm?”

 _I ‘let’ you catch me_ , Cass tapped, insufferably smug.

“Ugh, se- _man_ -tics,” Steph groaned. Relinquishing Cass felt like popping rivets -- finger by finger warped and unclasped. “Fine. Whatcha waiting for?” 

Cass bounded off, exuberance in every step. Steph readjusted her gear, telling herself that the head-start was for Cass’s benefit, that Steph wasn’t trying to catch her breath at all.

For a moment, the arrangement of shadows on the floor wavered, and Cass gazed back, silhouetted in the window, before she vanished.

God. Steph counted to five and fired her grapple gun. Hate to see you go, love to watch you leave, right?

 

**


End file.
